A Favourable Arrangement
by Grav
Summary: Fili and Sigrid agree to an arranged marriage, and quickly learn that mountains and lakes ally more quickly than people.
1. Chapter 1

**AN**: I owed quite a few people a "sunshine and puppies" story. This is it.

Also, I seem to have fallen into a crack!ship, and I have zero regrets.

**Spoilers**: The Hobbit

**Disclaimer**: The Hobbit comes from Tolkien, Sigrid comes from the Jackson movie, hopefully I didn't make too many mistakes!

**Rating**: M

**Characters**: Sigrid, Fili, Tilda, Kili; Fili/Sigrid

**Summary**: Fili and Sigrid agree to an arranged marriage, and quickly learn that mountains and lakes ally more quickly than people. 

* * *

**Chapter 1**

In all the excitement, she can almost forget it is her wedding that the celebrations are for. The great hall Under the Mountain is lit with a thousand lanterns, light refracting off of mirrored jewels so that it is as though the very sun blazes through the heart of the stone. Her people dance, bright colours returned to their cloth thanks to years of successful trade in a city newly built. She herself wears the finest material Dale produces, turning down her father's offer of the softer southern fabrics for the comfort of something made at home. He'd not pressed the issue. He has not pressed her for anything since she agreed to the marriage.

The offer had, at least, been made in good faith. She sees Fili often enough, in missions to Dale on his uncle's behalf, and hears of his exploits as he helps to clear the last remnants of rabid orc packs from the northern mountains. His uncle and her father have reached an accord, but neither can forget the words they spoke to one another, those years ago, by Erebor's Front Gate. They are polite and formal, but their people can feel the lack of warmth between them.

Sigrid assumes it was Balin who suggested the wedding. In any case, it was the statesman-dwarf who had come to her father's newly built house to make the proposal. Bard had almost refused on the spot, but Sigrid would not let him. She had agreed to let Fili court her, and to Balin's suggestion that she and Fili be the ones to write the actual contract. After, her father had told her every time the dwarves paid a call that she did not have to marry if she did not wish it, but Sigrid has never been stupid. Even the rumour of a union between Mountain and City has seen an increase in trade. Fili is as good a prince as she might wish for, and as good a man. Her father will reconcile his feelings soon enough. She must only show him that she is happy, and she thinks she might be, given time.

Now, though, as the dancers whirl, Sigrid feels the beginning of doubt. The dwarves are so different, their halls so alien, for all that she can see her own city from their gate. She wears a dwarrowdam-style gown, cut taller and slighter to fit, and sits at the high table with the dwarf-lords, and wonders if this is a terrible mistake.

She hears her sister's laugh rise above the noise of the crowd, and looks for her in the crush of dancers. Tilda is dancing with Kili, though he plainly does not know the steps. Instead, they lurch around the floor, nearly colliding with the more decorous pairs. Tilda cannot stop giggling at his antics for long enough to tell him the proper way, or perhaps she doesn't care. Sigrid feels the smile in her stomach before it appears on her face, to see her sister having so much fun.

"He's always like that," says Fili, who has been seated beside her, of course, though they have not spoken much. "He can't do our dances either, and if Tauriel didn't carry him, I think he'd be trod to death at an elvish party."

Sigrid's smile does not lessen as she looks at him, though her stomach shifts. It's not entirely uncomfortable. In the years since the Mountain's recovery, Fili has grown broader. His beard is full, and reaches nearly half-way down his chest. Tonight, it is woven with gold chains, so fine that when he turns his head or laughs, she can hardly tell where the jewelry leaves off and the hair begins. He is every inch the golden prince now, so changed from the traveller who climbed out of her toilet all those years ago.

She's changed too, she knows. She's filled out and her hair is thicker now that she eats enough on a regular basis. She can see the alterations well enough in Tilda and in Bain to know that she must look healthier, brighter, too. But she does not think she can hold a candle to him.

The music shifts, and Kili sets her sister down. He looks at them from across the floor, amusement clearly writ upon his face, and Fili takes a deep breath.

"Hold your chair, lass," his whispers. "Grip it under the bottom. They won't let you fall, but they'll seem like they're trying to!"

She had known what to expect, of course, though not when to expect it. The dwarrowdams who had laced her into her dress had been sure to tell her as much as they could about the dwarvish customs. Much of it had gone in one of her ears and out the other, thanks to her nerves, but this she remembers, because the description of it had ended with the one word she still can't think of without feeling like she can't breathe:_ bed_.

Her father is staring at her, the only person in the whole hall, besides Thorin, naturally, who is not grinning and clapping along with the music as the dwarves converge on them, lifting their chairs on to their broad shoulders and singing what Sigrid must assume are bawdy songs in their own tongue. She smiles as much for Bard's sake as for her own, grateful for Fili's warning as the chair slides forward and backward.

They are carried down the corridor towards the living quarters, all the dwarves of Erebor behind them. Kili, near the front of the throng, has Tilda on his shoulders so she isn't crushed by accident, and it's he who opens the door when they all finally arrive at the suite Sigrid and Fili will share.

At last, not even Sigrid's grip on the chair is enough to save her. She's tumbled out and into Fili's arms, as the throng laughs good-heartedly around them. She's never been so glad to not speak Khuzdul, and hopes that Kili has the sense not to do any translating for her sister.

And then Fili is pushed through the door, and his brother shuts it behind them, and Sigrid realizes that she is alone with her husband in the dark. 

* * *

Fili had never given much thought to his marriage. Before the quest, his life had only two possible outcomes: regain the Mountain or perish in the attempt. When the former had occurred, he'd forgotten that it was the beginning, not the end.

There had been no discussion of it for the first few years. Erebor was rebuilding, as was Dale, but both were strong. There were pockets of resentment, of course: Men who felt the dwarves owed more, dwarves who felt the Men deserved less. Thorin's regal disinterest didn't exactly calm these sentiments down, but the dissent between the two races never grew louder than a whisper.

Then Balin had gone and turned the whole royal council on its ear. Kili's allegiance with the elves of Mirkwood, unofficial as it was it yet, left them in good standing with Thranduil's kin. A marriage to a daughter of Dale for Fili might do the same. And Balin, ever the canny planner, had a specific daughter in mind.

"You think the Bowman will allow it?" Thorin had shouted, and Fili had known that Balin would win: Thorin only resorted to calling Bard by his old epithet when he was cornered.

"I think the lady herself will see the wisdom of the match," Balin had said. "She runs his house, as ever, and that means running the City as well. Bard might resist, but Lady Sigrid will agree to it, I am certain."

"Fili?" Kili had asked, the only one to so much as look at him.

"I will court her, if you wish it," he'd said. "But if she does not, I will not push her."

"Do what you will then," The King had commanded, and thus it was begun.

It isn't until he sees her at the wedding, dressed in dwarvish style and with the colours of his house woven into her hair, that he knows his heart is lost. Their courting had been painfully formal, not to mention superlatively supervised. As a result they still do not know each other very well, but he knows that she is strong of heart and a hard worker. He can only hope that, given time, he will be more than an alliance to her, more than a better path for her people.

She does not eat much, but then, neither does he. He wishes they could dance, but they didn't have enough time to learn each other's steps, and while it is all right for Kili to make an ass of himself, Fili must uphold the dignity of Erebor, tonight more than ever. Instead, he watches her from the side of his eye. The light gleams on her hair and on the jewels that adorn her gown, but it is her eyes that sparkle the brightest as she watches the dancers below. She is, he is grateful to see, not afraid. He supposes that after a dragon, a dwarf is not much of a threat.

The music changes, and he has time to warn her, at least, before they are borne up and away by the crowd. His kin have the sense to dump him off his perch first, so that he might catch her when she falls, but then his idiot brother shoves him, and that means he has to hold her even tighter so that neither of them takes an unfortunate tumble. If nothing else, it would be considered unlucky. He can hear Kili's laugh above the crowd, and then abruptly nothing, as the door is shut and they are left in the dark.

"Are you all right?" he asks, still holding her in his arms.

"Yes, thank you," she says. "The ladies who helped me get ready told me this would happen. But thank you for the warning anyway."

"It wouldn't do for you to start married life with a fall," Fili says, thoughtlessly. Then he realizes what he's said: _married life_.

She stills in his arms, and he sets her down as gently as he can. She's lost a slipper, he notices, as her skirts settle themselves on the floor. Her foot will be cold against the stone, and yet the only place he can think to send her, the bed, seems uncouth.

"I'll build up the fire," he says instead, and turns towards the hearth.

They don't have a formal reception area in their private suite. The rooms had not originally been designated for the royal family, but Fili selected them because, far from the heart of the Mountain as they are, they have windows. It's small, for both of their stations, but Sigrid had liked the idea, and they will have public reception rooms aplenty as their roles within Erebor change. For now, the room is dominated by the hearth on one side, and the bed on the other, with lush carpets between. He makes a note to see about getting chairs. There are doors, to the spring-fed bath and to their separate dressing rooms. Her things arrived two days ago, but have not been unpack yet. In his mother's wisdom, as set down by the contract, it was decided to let the new Lady of Erebor organize her own belongings.

He hears her move to the lamps that line the wall, and the room brightens as she turns the wicks. He pokes the fire, it does not in truth need much help, and tries desperately to think of something to do or say.

She curses softly as he turns, his eyes blind from staring at the fire, and when he can see clearly again, she is standing in front of him. They are nearly matched in height – he looks directly at her chin when they both wear shoes, and taller when he's in his heavy boots – but she is much slighter than he is.

"Sigrid?" he asks.

"It's the dress," she says, colouring. "I watched them lace it, and it seemed simple enough, but..."

She trails off, and he realizes what has happened. It's a dwarvish wedding dress. They're not as intricate as the sort of dresses his mother wears to court. Those are laced in such a complicated way that he might spend an hour and end up only with a tangle of ribbon. Wedding dresses are designed to unlace with ease, but tied in such a way that the person who wears them cannot reach the knots.

"Turn around," he says, as softly as he can, and she turns.

He lifts her coiled hair, and puts it over her shoulder. The dress unlaces at his barest touch. He's not entirely sure how it stayed on throughout the evening, but finds he cannot spend too much time thinking about that because he has been completely distracted by her skin. It's paler than a dwarrowdam's would be, and dusted with freckles. Unaccountably, he wonders what it might taste like, were he to lean forward and press a kiss to the skin he's just exposed.

She shivers, and he jerks back to himself. His fingers move to the other knots, and before he quite knows it, the weight of the jewels on the gown pulls the whole thing off of her shoulders to pool on the floor. Neither of them moves for a breath, and then she turns back to him. For an irrational moment, he is so proud of her, his brave girl, that he thinks his heart might burst. Then she leans down and kisses him, and he rather forgets to think at all. 

* * *

She ought to be mortified that he has to unlace her, but instead he seems to expect it, and for some reason that makes her feel better. They are married, she recalls belatedly, a bubble of something that is not quite panic coursing through her. Of course he would expect to undress her.

His touch is soft, first as he lifts her hair out of the way, and then as he undoes the knots she can't reach. She feels his breath against her skin, warm, and realizes that the heat behind her is not the fire, but him. She resolves to match it, to be the wife he expects her to be, and musters her courage as his hands move lower. She nearly falters when the dress falls away, leaving her in just her shift, but then she pulls herself together and turns.

He has the oddest expression on his face, but she doesn't give herself too much time to think about it. Instead, she bends towards him, and presses her mouth to his. She hasn't done a lot of kissing, certainly not enough to think herself by any means proficient at it. His response is, therefore, quite a bit more than she is expecting.

His hands move back to her waist, and hold on to her, hard. The fabric of her shift balls up under his fingers, and the hem rises above her knees. She feels the press of him everywhere, his mouth on hers, his hands still tightening, the fabric of his trews against her bared legs. It is overwhelming, and she tilts her head back to gasp for breath. There is little relief in that, though, because he takes her head in his hands, and trails kisses down her neck, stopping when he reaches her collar bone. For one brief, illogical moment, she wonders why the hair of his beard doesn't tickle her – it's coarse and tantalizing, but it doesn't make her want to laugh – and then he finds his way back to her mouth again.

His hands slide to her shoulders and push back, gently but very, very determined. She has the presence of mind of step out of the dress carefully, but after that relies on him to steer. It isn't until the bed hits the back of her knees that she understands. She jerks her head up, finally breaking away from the heat of his kiss.

"Sigrid," he says, her name mostly air in his mouth. He swallows hard. "We don't have to, if you'd rather not."

"Fili," she says, shocked at her forwardness, "take off your trousers."

He does, and she turns down the bed, wrestling with the bolster until she gets it clear of the mattress. He lifts her again, and sets her as close to the middle as he can reach before climbing in after her, kicking off his shoes as he goes.

If she was unprepared for him when they stood in front of the fire, she is devastatingly unprepared for him now. He returns to kissing her, gently at first but with increasing heat, until she thinks she'll melt against him. He's taken off his tunic as well as his trousers, and come to bed in just his linen shirt. It leaves very little to her imagination, and she cannot stop touching him, which is probably why he's kissing her with such ferocity.

He rolls over, pulling her on top of him, and she realizes how heavy he is when her lungs expand with ease. She didn't mind the weight, not exactly, but this makes her feel slightly more in control, and she is glad of it. She can feel the length of him, pressing against her thigh, and that is enough to make her lungs contract again. Unable to stop herself, she looks down between them and hears his breath catch. Before he can stop her, she moves. 

* * *

Fili stops unlacing his trousers half-way done to take the gold chains out of his beard. Sigrid is wrestling with the bedding, her hair coming loose around her head in a cloud. She's beautiful, he realizes. It's profoundly un-dwarvish, but it is beauty nonetheless. The jewelry he makes for her will have to be different, he thinks, and there are very few existing pieces that will suit. He does not mind. He could never. He will do the work with a glad heart, for his craft, and for the girl who will someday be his queen.

He strips off his trews and tunic, leaving them rather disgracefully on the floor in a heap, and lifts her into the bed. Never has he been so happy to be wearing light boots. He kicks them off and follows her, kissing as gently as he can manage until her hands on his chest and arms spur him on, and he cannot reign himself in. She squirms underneath him, and he remembers her slight figure. He rolls, thinking it might be easier for her to be on top, and finds he rather likes her sprawling thus.

He can't find any of the pins in her hair, and gives up trying. He will take them all out later. He pulls her shift up, but it's mostly caught between them, and does not come far. It does pull his own shirt up a bit though, exposing his arousal. He thinks to pull the shirt down, but Sigrid's hand gets there first, and he bites back a groan at her touch. His eyelids flutter shut, which is why he doesn't see her bite her lip. He does feel her move, but can't tell her intent until it's too late. Before he can prepare her, before he can _stop_ her, she slides down on to him, taking him to the hilt.

With just the lamps and the fire, there's not that much light in the room, but it's enough that he can see her. Her face is white as snow, mouth tight with pain and surprise, though she does not cry out. He doesn't budge, waiting for her to recover, to move away, and it's a moment longer before he realizes that she can't. He puts his hands on her hips. Her whole body tenses, and he nearly moans again because she feels so good. He bites his tongue as hard as he can, and pushes up, separating them from each other. She retreats to the other side of the bed.

"Sigrid," he says, when his voice returns. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine, my lord," she says. It's the first time she's called him that since they started courting. He hates it.

"Sigrid," he starts, but she puts one finger to his lips and he stops talking.

"It was my fault," she says. She's crying. He can hear it in her voice, but he's afraid that if he touches her, she'll hate him for it. "The others, in Lake-town, they said it would hurt so I thought I would just get it over with."

"Sig – " He says her name again, because it's all he has left.

"I'm sorry," she says. "I wanted you to…I wanted to be your wife."

"You are my wife," he says, suddenly exhausted. "Regardless of what happens in this bed, you are mine. And I am yours. I promise you that."

He says it in tones more heated than he'd meant to, and regrets it immediately.

"I would like to sleep, if that's all right with you." Her voice is impossibly small. It cuts him worse than any knife.

"Of course," he says.

Bard is going to kill him. _Thorin_ is going to kill him. Fili thinks he might just kill himself, and save them all the trouble, unless Sigrid wants to do it. She has certainly earned it.

She doesn't turn away from him, but she doesn't come any closer either. More than anything, he wants to hold her, to whisper that he will never hurt her again, to make uncountable promises until she falls asleep, and then murmur "I love you" when she can no longer hear him. Instead, he stares at the ceiling, cursing himself for being so damned inattentive and watching the firelight flicker in the veins of amber there, until her breathing evens out, and then he follows her into slumber. 

* * *

In the morning, when he returns from the privy, she is gone, disappeared to her dressing room or the bath, he guesses. Either way, he will not disturb her. In the hearth, the fire is roaring, and it is not until he sees the unmade bed that he understands what she has done. He knew there must have been blood, and had steeled himself to see it, but Sigrid has burned the sheets instead.

If the servants ask, he will tell them that it is a human custom and change the subject. 

* * *

To be continued...


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

_One year before_

Sigrid smooths her dress, again, and does her best not to worry too visibly. Her father is already on edge, the idea of this marriage has raised in him aspects of himself he does not like, and she is doing her best not to make it any worse. Tilda sits beside her, excited at the prospect of seeing "her" dwarves again. Sigrid has an arm around her waist, under the guise of keeping the younger girl in her seat. In reality, she clings to Tilda as though her sister is a piling and Sigrid their rickety old Lake-town house. Maude sits in the corner, stitching as always, and Bain has disappeared.

When the footman shows the party in, Bard stands. He has learned how to shake hands with Balin without hunching over or causing the dwarf to stand on tip-toes. He does not show Fili the same regard, and he does not have the opportunity to shake Kili's hand at all, because as soon as she lays eyes on him, Tilda gives a cry of laughter and hurls herself into his arms. Maude clucks, but Sigrid's pretty sure her heart isn't in it. Kili is well known in Dale, and serves in the guard occasionally. Sigrid is frankly grateful for anything that cuts the tension.

Fili takes the seat Tilda has vacated, keeping a respectful distance between them. Oin has not come, to Tilda's disappointment. His hearing is even worse, and parlour gatherings are not to his taste. She brightens, though, when Kili mentions the new automaton he has brought for her, and they retire to a corner to wind it, under Maude's careful eye.

Balin and Bard speak of the weather on the Long Lake, and Sigrid does her best to listen attentively. Beside her, Fili does not even try. Instead, he looks at her. It's not appraising, exactly, as though she were a stone for carving or meat for the table. It's more like he is wondering what she might become, if given the right opportunity, as if she were a pretty jewel already, and he had only to find the best setting.

Since he's staring at her, she cannot look back at him. She feels this is distinctly unfair. Her father and Balin have moved on to the state of the fisheries, and she looks at Fili's boots to keep from collapsing in a ball of nerves. They are much finer now than they had been when he arrived at Lake-town for the first time, but still worn around the toes and heels. Prince he may be in truth, now, but he still walks on his own feet.

For some reason, this gives her the courage to look at his face, and he smiles when she does.

"I've a trifle for you, my lady," he says. He does not put the slightest emphasis on the "my".

"Thank you, my lord," she replies, for lack of anything else to say.

"I think we ought to be just Fili and Sigrid," he says, pulling a carefully wrapped package from his pocket. "This is already about as formal as I can manage."

She returns his smile at that. It's true enough. They are both of them from common means, and find themselves heirs to fortunes they had only dreamed of when winter winds and hungry siblings were foremost in their concerns.

He places the package in her hands without touching her. It's warm against her skin from being in his pocket. The cloth is not particularly fine, dwarf-make, she can tell, but the embroidery is in real gold thread. She unwraps it carefully, and soon holds a piece of clear crystal, polished to be so transparent that she can see her own freckles through it. Inside the crystal are several small blooms, red and orange and yellow.

"It's beautiful, my – Fili," she says, and means it. "Thank you. What sort of flowers are they? I don't recognize them."

"They come from Ered Luin," he says. "From my mother's garden, there. Flowers don't grow so well on the Mountain, but the Blue Mountains had many of them."

"However did they get here?" Sigrid asks.

"Raven," he says. "I had a special wrap designed to keep them safe, and then set them in the crystal as soon as they arrived. I can show you how, if you like, after...well, someday."

He thinks their marriage is inevitable too, she understands, and he is not offended by it. A weight she didn't realize she carried is lifted from her.

"I would like that," she replies.

She cannot say anything else to him, because Balin asks a question about the silk trade that her father does not know the answer to, and she is requested to give it. By the time she has recounted all she knows, the tea is brought, and Tilda finds her way back to the bench, sitting between them and chattering happily about the automaton Kili brought for her.

Fili's hand brushes against hers when she passes him the plate of sweet rolls over Tilda's lap. It is the first time he has touched her since the day he held her against the over-turned table while orcs crashed through the ceiling of her house. 

* * *

Tilda climbs into their bed, her hands and face still wet from washing. It's still strange not to pour the washing water out the window, but not living in the middle of the Lake has its advantages, and one of them is that even when her bedmate climbs into bed with damp hands, Sigrid is rarely so cold she can't sleep anymore.

"Sigrid," Tilda says when she has settled on her pillow. "Are you sad to marry a dwarf?"

"No, Tilda," she says. "It is only that we do not know each other very well."

"You should be more like Kili and me," Tilda advises. "We play all the time, and I know him very well."

"Unfortunately that isn't proper," Sigrid says, though privately she agrees.

"Well," Tilda says, "if Kili were not in love with Lady Tauriel, I would marry him and you would not have to marry Fili. But I think you should anyway."

"Oh," Sigrid says, now amused. "And how are you an expert in this?"

"Maude told the kitchen girls what he brought you, and they scoffed because it wasn't jewels and gold," Tilda says. "Maude said "Aye, gold and jewels are right easy for the like of him. He has only to go into any room and find them aplenty. But flowers? From across the world? That is princely." And I think she is right. Kili always brings me things I like, not things that are rich, and you don't have any jewels, so Fili doesn't know what sort you like."

That is true enough, Sigrid knows. She had only one piece that had been her mother's, and it lies at the bottom of Long Lake, underneath the body of a dragon. She also knows that Tilda heard the observation about her tastes, or lack thereof, eavesdropping on the women who work in the house. She ought to have stopped her sister doing that, except sometimes it's the only way they learn things that their father cannot teach them.

"Addie said that the way he looks at you is reassuring, but then she said something I didn't understand," Tilda continues. "I am fairly certain it was rude."

"Tell me," Sigrid says, hoping that if she sounds desperate her sister will not notice.

"She said "If the dwarf prince is as broad elsewhere as he is across the shoulders, our poor Sigrid is" and then Maude made her stop," Tilda says. "But everyone laughed, so I knew it must be unseemly."

"It was most unseemly," Sigrid tells her. She blushes hard in the dark. She would be a liar if she said that thought had not crossed her mind. At least now she knows she was right to worry about it.

"Will you tell me?" Tilda asks.

"No," Sigrid tells her. "Maybe someday, Tilda. But if I tell you now..."

Tilda slides across the mattress under the heavy coverlet and wraps herself around her sister, as they used to do when the nights were cold.

"I'd be scared too," she says. "Even if it was Kili, and I knew he was a merry sort."

Sigrid's reply sticks in her throat, but Tilda doesn't notice or care. Instead she burrows in even closer, and they fall asleep as they had done when they were children of the Lake, not Ladies of Dale. 

* * *

_Present Day_

Sigrid escapes to the bath as soon as she is sure the fire will consume the sheet in its entirety. Part of her is ashamed at the waste, surely there wasn't _that_ much blood, and she might have cleaned it without anyone knowing, but more of her is relieved that it is gone, and gone without Fili seeing it. That he might come into the bath occurs to her, but once she is in the hot water she cannot make herself rush. He does not join her, but they take breakfast together. He tells her that he has duties to attend to, but will return as soon as possible. He does not mention the sheet.

"Will you be all right for the day?" he asks, pulling his ceremonial daggers to straighten the belt he sheathes them in.

"Yes," she assures him. "I have to oversee the arrangement of my things, and I would like to learn how the Mountain operates as soon as possible."

"My mother will help you, until you have your own ladies," Fili says. According to the marriage contract, Sigrid is entitled to her own household, but she must staff it mostly with dwarves.

"Thank you," she says.

He looks like he wants to say something more, and she wonders if she ought to kiss him, but then he is gone. They will tease him today, she is sure of it, newly wedded and newly bedded as he is. She tries not to think about it.

Breakfast is cleared away, and Dis arrives to help her organize her rooms. Sigrid spends the day doing familiar things, if on a grander scale than she is used to, and by the time dinner arrives, with Fili right behind it, she is feeling almost at home. The meal is a repeat of breakfast, polite and nearly strained, and then they retire to sit by the fireplace until the inevitable can no longer be put off. 

* * *

Fili is reading correspondences that he might have read during the day, except he saved them in case the evening became awkward. The fire crackles merrily, the only sound. Sigrid's attention is on her lap, where her hoop rests. She stitches efficiently, and he tries his best not to think about how deft her fingers must be.

"What are you making?" he asks, before he does something unbearably stupid.

"It's nothing, really," she says, but passes the hoop over anyway. "Growing up, I was always sewing at night, with Bain being all elbows and knees, and Tilda growing faster than I could hem her dresses. After the dragon, mending was work for the maids, and I had to find something else. We didn't do much embroidery before, there's no real call for it, but it keeps me from being idle."

"It's beautiful," he says, and means it. She's stitched the Mountain, all greys and greens. Below it is Fili's crest, and above is the outline of hers.

"It's a handkerchief," Sigrid says.

"When you cross the world with a Hobbit, you learn the value of a good handkerchief," he says, smiling as he hands it back. She smiles too, and he counts it as a victory.

"Most dwarves have a night-craft, like your sewing," Fili says.

"A night-craft?" she asks.

"Well, we've got our main crafts, which is how we make our way in the world," he explains. "Mine used to be jewelry making, like Kili, but now I spend my days at politics."

"You don't like it?" she asks.

"It's different, is all," he tells her. "I miss making things, you see."

"I do," she says, looking up from her stitches.

"Anyway, in the evening, we do other things. More home-like, I suppose," he continues. "Kili fletches arrows, for example."

"What do you do?" she asks. She sets the hoop aside, interest unfeigned.

"It's easier to show you," he says, and stands up.

He goes to his dressing room, and opens the worn case at the bottom of one of his wardrobes. He'd lost his travel violin to the goblin caves, of course, but this one had been carried to Erebor by his mother, over safer roads. There were better made ones in the hoard, but Fili would not trade. It would be like giving away an old friend.

Sigrid's face lights up when he returns, and he feels like that alone has made the whole evening worthwhile.

"Not the most practical craft for a group of nomads," he admits, "but I love it. Shall I play milady a tune?"

"Please," she says.

She does not know the drinking songs from Ered Luin, of course, but he plays them for her anyway. He sings the less bawdy ones, and she claps her hands in time and turns a most appealing shade of pink. Without thinking, he plays the Misty Mountain song, and sings the old words he was raised with, not the new ones written in times of gladness.

"I had not heard that version," she says, when he is done.

"It does us good to remember," he tells her, and then begins to play jauntier tunes again, though once again they cannot dance.

She falls asleep with the firelight on her face, and a smile on her lips. He tucks her carefully into their bed, and crawls in on the other side, as far from her as he can manage, even though he wants nothing more than to dance with her, and fall, breathless, into the sheets at last.

It takes him a very long time to fall asleep.

* * *

To be continued...


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

A month passes, and they fall into a sort of routine. They take breakfast and dinner together, and spend their evenings pretending to look at the fire instead of at each other. They grow slightly more comfortable. Most nights, Fili plays for her, and she teaches him the Lake-town songs of her youth. He is careful to keep his distance, despite her best efforts, and though they share a bed, Sigrid is starting to wonder if this is what it feels like to sleep alone.

Once their suite is arranged to her liking, she spends her days mostly in the various stillrooms attached to the kitchens and to the infirmary. She knows a great deal more about plants than most dwarves, and is not at all afraid to get her hands dirty, or spend hours stirring noxious brews for the healers to use. One day when she is particularly busy, hands covered in sap and worse, she re-ties her hair after lunch without thinking about it, and it is not until the evening that she realizes the consequences.

She sits in her chair by the fire, because the light is better there than it is in her dressing room. After a few days of watching her squint at her embroidery, Fili had presented her with a mirror-lamp, which he told her Ori had designed to help him write long into the evening hours. For the first time, her husband is not able to join her for the evening meal, but sent a note with his regrets instead. She understands this, being her father's daughter, and takes advantage of the privacy to see if she can fix the disaster on her head, before it takes permanent root or makes a run for Mirkwood.

She's worked out most of the knots, but there is one behind her head that persists in thwarting her. To make matters worse, she cannot even see it. At least she can tell by touch that it is small. She rummages through her workbasket for her thread scissors, and has just managed to free the knot from the rest of her hair when there is a wounded sound from near the door.

"What are you doing?" It's Fili, of course. Her husband looks pale, but maybe that is just the light.

"There's knot," she says. "I can't reach it or untangle it."

With visible effort, Fili masters himself and crosses the room to her side. He takes the scissors away, setting them down as though they were a snake, and tilts her head forward so that he can see the damage.

"It's not so bad," he tells her. "May I?"

She nods, and lets him pull her to her feet. He sits in his own chair, and she sits at his knees, facing the fire. He's forgotten the comb, but doesn't seem to mind, setting in with his fingers to work on the tangle.

"Amongst my people," he says after a while, "hair is only cut in grief."

"I did not know that," she says.

"My uncle kept his beard short the whole time we were in exile," he says. "Except for my vanity, so did I."

"Tilda thought your mustache was funny," Sigrid tells him.

"As well she might," he says. "It was a bit ridiculous without the beard to match."

"I am sorry to upset you," she says. "And I am glad of the help."

"I miss working with my hands," he tells her.

She remembers the chains he wore at the wedding, and the ones he had given to her while they were courting. They were so fine, you might think the links were solid until you held them close to your eye. She supposes that if his fingers can do that manner of work, hair must not be too much of a problem.

"There," he says. "All clear."

He does not stop running his fingers through her hair, though, and she does not move away from him. She feels him pull strands together, and begin to weave, and she knows that he is braiding. They do not speak again, until he loops a coil of hair around her head and tucks it in so that it will stay. Then he leans forward and presses a kiss, the first in weeks, to her temple.

"I am sorry I cannot play for you tonight, Sigrid," he says. "We are working out the rationing for winter, and I am exhausted by it. Good night, my love."

And then he stands and leaves her, feeling altogether surprised, by the hearth.

* * *

He is mad. That is the only explanation for his behaviour. After promising her he wouldn't hurt her again, he simply cannot keep his hands to himself. He supposes he might be excused for preventing her from cutting her hair, but what followed after had been too much. He waits in his dressing room until his arousal subsides, and when he comes out, she is in her own room, preparing for bed as well. She emerges in her nightdress, hair still braided, and he swallows a groan. Now he will have to look at her, and try not to think about what the patterns mean.

She's quiet as she climbs into bed, and it is not until her breathing evens out that Fili remembers the last thing he said to her.

He's never wanted anything in his life so much as he wants to feel her skin again, to hear the way her breath catches when he kisses her. He has made her smile and laugh, these evenings since their disastrous wedding night, but she is still uneasy about him. He wants to tell her that she has no cause to fear him, but that would be a lie. Even today, buried in lists of food and fuel and numbers, all he could think about is what it felt like to be inside of her, to have her body under his, moving together.

His arousal stirs again, and he mercilessly clamps down on his thoughts. He begins to recite the grain stores to himself, and then moves on to the meat, and then the coal. He falls asleep at last, and hopes he will dream of ration cards, but instead he sees nothing but her: naked and beautiful and beyond his reach.

* * *

He must think her a terrible coward, that if he touches her again, she will break. She is determined to show him otherwise, but she cannot think how. Instead, all she can conjure is the feel of his fingers in her hair, gentle and precise, and how she longs to see what happens when he touches her somewhere besides her scalp and the nape of her neck.

He had been gone when she woke this morning, a note explaining that he must continue his work on the rationing, but would do his best to be home for dinner. She sits in front of the mirror in her dressing room for a long time, looking at her hair. She is not a restless sleeper, so the braids are still mostly intact. It is an easy thing to pin up the few errant strands, and then she thinks it looks rather fine indeed. No one has braided her hair since her mother died, except at her wedding, and she finds she likes the results when it's done by someone who can see the back of her head.

She ventures forth and returns to the stillroom, ready to put in another day of work. She cannot help but notice that her subjects follow her with their eyes more than they had before. The miners leave wide space around her in the corridors and the guards straighten when she passes them. Even the kitchen dwarrows bob their heads when she goes by, bending at the knee and holding in place for a fraction of a second longer than she is used too. She is too tied up in her own considerations to waste her time trying to figure out why.

* * *

It's nearly lunchtime before Sigrid puts her finger on the reason the dwarves in the kitchen and stillroom are acting so strangely today. Despite her desire not to puzzle on it, she has been unable to stop herself. Up until now, the dwarrows have treated her as her own people did: as the daughter of the Dragon Slayer, and a Lady of Dale. Now, it's different. Now, they treat her like someday she will be queen.

It's the braids. She should have asked Fili what they meant when he was putting them in. She knows better than to take them out, in any case, and return to her usual, more practical style. Goodness only knows who she'd offend if she did. She settles for taking her luncheon and disappearing to one of the smallest stillrooms, the one where they hang nettles to dry for stewing, the better to be alone.

She has just set out her food when Kili comes in. She starts to stand, but he waves her off, and sits gracelessly on the bench across from her. He unpacks his own lunch, splitting his sweet roll in half and handing it over when he sees that she has none, and begins eating as though they do this with regularity.

"You look well," he says, his mouth full. "Mother was worried that spending so much time Under the Mountain would wash you out, but you're as freckled as ever."

Only a dwarf would think that was a compliment, but Sigrid is glad to hear it anyway, and says as much.

"Don't you have to help with the winter planning?" she asks.

"Uncle can only take so much of Dori and Gloin sniping at each other," Kili says. "He threw us all out of the council chambers about half an hour ago, and I thought I'd come and see what you were about." He looks at her a little bit sideways. "Must admit, I thought you'd be easier to find."

"I usually eat with the others," she tells him.

"What's wrong with their company today?"

"Nothing," she says quickly. She's glad her hands are full, or she'd twist her hair for sure, and that would give her away. "I just wanted some time to myself."

He raises his eyebrows. "You know," he says. "My brother said almost the same thing when he told me he didn't want to take luncheon together. The others all laughed of course, because why would he have lunch with me, and yet, here you are, all alone as well. It's odd, all things considered."

"What things are considered?" Sigrid asks.

"Well your hair, for a start," Kili says. "Stars above, lass, didn't he tell you?"

"No," she says. "His mind was on other things at the time."

Kili's smile grows positively delighted, and she hates to burst his bubble.

"Not that," she says. "The rationing."

Kili rolls his eyes and sighs in the most put-upon way she's ever heard. He lays down his bread, and leans forward, one hand extended.

"That one," he tells her, pointing to the smaller braids that begin in the centre of her brow and join at the back of her head, "says that you are beloved of the House of Durin. The extra coil identifies Fili as the one who loves you. If it twisted the other way, it'd be me, and if it were doubled, it would be Uncle."

This time Sigrid cannot help herself. She runs a finger along the plait, feeling the four strands as Kili had described them. She finds it a little difficult to breathe.

"The braids along the bottom," he continues, unaware of her distress, "show that you are the second highest ranking female in Erebor, after my mother of course, because Thorin has no wife."

That probably explains the excessive deference shown by the others all morning.

"And that one," he concludes, teasing out a little braid that's nearly hidden behind her ear, the way a village magician might have looked for a flower, "says that you're his. But don't worry; he's given you the matching braid on the other side, which says he is at least as much yours."

Kili finishes his lecture with a studious air, and only then sees that she is starting to get upset.

"Sigrid, what is it?" he says.

She takes two deep breaths, and decides to tell him, mortifying though it is. Hopefully he will be so horrified that he'll deny the conversation ever took place.

"The wedding night," she says as rushed as she can, "it did not...it didn't go well. Since then, he hasn't tried anything. Even though I swear I've done my best to make myself...available."

Kili very deliberately pushes the remains of his lunch out of the way, and then bangs his head against the table. Sigrid jumps, but cannot help laughing, and feels immediately the better for it.

"My brother is an idiot," Kili tells her. "I have known this for a very long time."

"I think he's trying to be kind," Sigrid says, more than a little defensively.

"As you know, I have spent several years in close contact with the elves. I have learned to see hidden meanings and innuendo, because Thranduil never says what he means unless he can't possibly avoid it," he says. "My brother, on the other hand, has spent most of his time with dwarves, and must therefore be hit upside the head if you wish to get his attention."

"I'm not sure I understand," she admits.

"Be direct," he advises. "Use small words. Very small words. And make sure he uses them too."

He looks around the stillroom, at the nettles hanging from the ceiling, swaying gently in the draft that circulates through the Mountain, keeping them all from suffocating.

"If you go back to the kitchens, they'll just stare at you some more," he says. "I get half a day off, and I think you should too."

She sighs. The prospect of spending the rest of the day under the eyes of everyone who crosses her path had seemed unpleasant before she knew the truth that Fili had put into her hair. Knowing it, knowing what they see when they look at her; she is not ready to face that until she had spoken with her husband.

"Thank you," she says.

"You are most welcome, sister of my heart," he says grandiosely, kissing her knuckles. "You should always have a sweet with lunch, and I am happy to have brought you one."

They laugh, and Sigrid takes her leave. She does not see the self-congratulatory smirk that spreads across Kili's face as soon as her back is turned.

* * *

To be continued...


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Sigrid goes immediately to her dressing room, and retrieves the small mirror, the only thing she has of her mother's that survived the ruin of Lake-town, from its box. Usually the large mirror in her vanity suffices, but if she wants to see Fili's braids in detail, she needs something else. She angles it carefully, and finally sees them clearly. They look relatively simple, for all the fuss they've caused, but a lump still rises in her throat as she sees them.

She will take a bath, she thinks, and then she'll call one of the maids she never calls to help her dress, and wear one of the dwarf-style gowns that she can't untie on her own. The maid will know, of course, and there will be gossip, but it isn't like there is not gossip aplenty already, and her subjects have thus far been only kind in their whispering about her.

She strips quickly, hanging her things on the clothespress, and takes one of the robes that is more decorous than warm to wrap herself in. Back in their main room, she realizes that the door to the bath is already ajar.

_Fili_. Who wanted to eat his lunch alone. She has half a mind to go track down her brother-in-law, whether to kiss him or hit him she does not know, but she acknowledges that would be a waste. Still, she will not interrupt her husband if he does not wish it. She walks to the door as quietly as she can, and looks through.

For a moment, she thinks he might be asleep. He's sitting on the bench in the warm part of the pool, his head laid back on the edge and his eyes closed. He is beautiful, not in the way that Men are, but in a way that is his own. The braids feel heavy behind her ears. He is beautiful, and he is _hers_.

His shoulders move, his hands beneath the water, and she realizes what he is doing. She should not watch, but if she doesn't she will never learn. Her breath quickens as his mouth falls open, and she can feel the heat under her skin. Then he moans, and it can only be her name he says. She is moving before she has time to think, and sheds the robe as soon as she steps into the bathroom.

"Stop," she says, and he does.

His eyes fly open in alarm, hands raising out of the water as though she holds him at sword point. For a moment, they stare at one another, and then Sigrid moves again. She lowers herself directly into the pool instead of walking to the stairs, and crosses to where he sits. She puts one hand on his shoulder, and holds the other out to him.

"Show me," she says. "Fili, please."

He still looks stunned, but he reaches up to bring her close enough to kiss her. With his other hand, he takes her offered one, and pulls it underneath the water.

* * *

He is dreaming. He is dead, and has gone to the halls of his kin to wait for the re-making of the world. Her fingers, under his, are uncertain, and the light touch drives him mad. He looks at her, returning her determined gaze for as long as he can, but then his eyes close again against his power to stop them. He squeezes his hand, and she mimics him. He cannot stop.

"Sigrid," he says. "Sigrid."

"I'm here," she says.

Through the fog of his desire, he realizes that she truly is. She is with him, has chosen it, and that is what pushes him over the edge. With a moan, he spends between them, and lifts her hand to his lips.

"Sigrid," he says again. He has no idea what else to say.

"You have to show me," she says, apparently not at the same loss for words he is. "Show me what you want and I will do it."

He blinks at her stupidly and says the first thing that occurs to him: "They cannot all be done in the tub."

She shifts backwards, and he realizes just before she steps beyond his reach that she means _now_. He catches her, images of her splayed out beneath him in their bed rising before his eyes. There will be time for that. Later. He pulls her towards him instead, reaching down behind her knees to pull her legs up on either side of his. Kneeling, as standing, he looks at her chin, and when he pushes up to kiss her, her body presses against his in a way that would make him desperate for her, were he not already so.

"There are some things we can do in the tub," he amends his earlier statement, and bends to put his mouth on her breast.

Her hands wind into his hair, which he had combed out before getting in the bath. He can feel her breath on his scalp, and then her kisses there. He moves to her other breast, steadying her with his hands on her hips. Once he is sure she is stable there, he slides one hand between her thighs. The hands in his hair tighten, and then loose immediately.

"It's all right," he says, relinquishing her breast to speak. "You can pull as hard as you like."

He smiles, aiming for rakish but suspecting that he lands somewhere closer to addlepated, and returns his mouth to where it was previously occupied. The swirling water makes her skin even softer, and it does not take his questing hand long to find what he is looking for.

She gives a small cry when he begins to stoke her, which quickly changes into something else as he continues, deliberately trying to take her apart. The blood rushing in his ears obscures the sound for a moment, but then he realizes that it is his name, "Fili, Fili", over and over again. With a final nip, he leaves her breast and returns to her mouth, pressing their bodies together so that his fingers are even better angled against her.

She's moving now, she can't help it, and the surge of her body, the arch of her back with droplets of water flying everywhere, is enough that he finds himself hard again. He ignores it, as much as he can, focusing on her as she spirals closer and closer to her own edge. With something like a sob, she breaks, a wave crashing over her, and falls forward in his arms.

He cradles her through it, kissing and murmuring sweet things into her ear. At last she looks up at him, so beautifully shy that he never wants to let her go, and smiles.

"Fili," she says when she can speak again. "Take me to bed."

She does not have to ask him twice.

* * *

He carries her, in the end, and they are all way to the fine carpet on the floor beside the bed before he remembers that they are dripping wet. She laughs as he sets her on her feet, impudently, he thinks, and can't quite resist pinching her bottom before stalking back to the bath for their drying cloths. He wraps his around his waist, and towels her from shoulders to knees, stopping regularly to kiss the skin beneath his fingers. They are breathy kisses, and messy with his tongue, and she cannot stop giggling.

At last they are both dry, but before he throws her on the bed, as he rather would like to, he reaches up and undoes the braids he'd put in the night before. He drops the pins onto the side table, and smooths long tendrils of hair over her shoulders, back and breasts. He saves the two small ones behind her ears for the end, but when he reaches for them, she leans away.

"Not these ones," she says.

He wraps them around his fingers instead, and uses them to gently pull her to him. The kiss starts slowly enough, but the fire is close behind, and before long he lifting her again, and following her as they scramble towards the middle of the bed. He stops just beside her, though she is reaching for him, and looks down, trying to decide. At length, he pushes her knees apart and sets his mouth to use where his fingers had been occupied just before.

This time, she does not even try to be quiet, and since he cannot see her face, he revels in the noises she makes. She pleads when he slows, or if he leaves her core to lavish kisses upon her thighs. He would hoard each repetition of "Fili, please. Fili, _please_", if he could, but he can't, so he will have to settle for eliciting as many as possible. He doesn't really mind.

When he can tease her no longer, he sucks hard on her pearl, humming deep in his throat, and she comes. He finds the corner of one of the drying cloths and wipes his mouth, watching the pink of her skin's flush deepen under his appraisal. He kisses her belly, the space between her breasts, and then her mouth once more. He tries to keep the bulk of his weight off of her, but he cannot hide his arousal, and she cants her hips against him.

He sits up on his knees and reaches over to rummage in the drawer of his nightstand, returning with a small bottle of oil. He slicks himself and his fingers before replacing it, and leans down to kiss her.

"Slowly this time," he says, and she nods.

* * *

He splays one hand on her belly, and slides the index finger of the other inside of her. She still feels twitchy from earlier, and gasps a bit more loudly than is really warranted. He hesitates after that, so she says "Yes, yes" and moves her hips against his hand. That reassures him, and he adds a second finger soon after. His thumb drifts back to her core, and that really is more than she can handle.

"Too much, too much," she hisses.

He takes back his whole hand, and she almost cries.

"Just fingers?" he says, and she nods.

He adds a third, and a twist, and it is almost, almost perfect. She arches off the mattress, following him each time he moves away and grinding when he pushes back in.

The expression on his face had been almost careful, but now it changes into something else. She has seen it before, before their wedding night went sideways, but this time it is sharper. Hungrier. This time, she thinks she has a better idea of what it might mean. She can feel him, heavy and slick against her belly. She does not know everything about him, but she wants so badly to be ready, and she thinks that will be enough. She only has to tell him.

"Fili," she says, voice as level as she can manage, which she suspects is not much of a claim at the moment, given how difficult it is to breathe. "I am not afraid."

* * *

He forgets himself, his resolutions and restraint, and lunges, both hands free of her despite her protesting whine. He tangles her hair with oil and whatever else as he kisses her with desperate heat.

"Fili," she says, but he is already moving.

He lines them up, only a little clumsy in his haste, and then sinks into her so carefully he's not sure which of them is going to fly apart first. He does see the moment when discomfort cuts into her arousal, but it's fleeting. He can feel her adjusting; he just has to wait. She crosses her ankles behind his back, pulling him in just a little more, and rocks her hips as a test. He bites his tongue.

"I love you, too," she says, and that is all it takes.

He tries to be slow, he truly does, but everything that had been wrong the first time is _right_ now. He recognizes the way her fingers move, sure and certain in their work, as when she is sewing. He knows that look in her eye, the one she gets when she is determined. He sees the joy in her face, the same he sees when he plays for her, and when she sings him her own songs to learn.

By the time he thinks to slip a hand between them, to help her reach her peak again, it is too late: he is already falling apart. She doesn't seem to mind, and her grip on him does not lessen as his thrusts become erratic. He comes with her name on his lips, and his heart given over entirely to her keeping.

* * *

She cherishes his weight above her, before he musters himself to move. She might have complained, except he goes to fetch her a cup of water. It's not until she drinks it that she realizes how dry her throat had been. She has apparently done quite a bit of yelling.

He smiles at her, and somehow she knows that he is thinking the same thing, and that he loves her for it. It stops her from feeling shy.

He settles in on her pillows, and pulls her to him, avoiding the mess they've made in the middle of the bed. They can clean it up tomorrow. Right now, she is fairly certain her legs would not support her anyway.

"You have to show me too," he tells her, as she arranges herself on his chest. "And if we don't know something, we'll figure it out together."

"I will," she says.

"My brave girl," he sighs, as she is drifting off. "My brave wife."

"My brave husband," she replies, and finds she likes the words quite a bit.

His arms surround her, his beard tickling her cheek, and she falls asleep.

* * *

It's morning when she wakes, and Fili's hold has loosened while the slept. It's enough that she can escape to the privy without waking him. She uses the necessary, and then washes her hands and face. There are bruises, she sees, and she blushes to think how they were earned.

When she gets back to bed, he has not yet moved, but he shifts when she crawls in beside him again, pulling her back towards him with a contented sigh. There are strong arms and a broad chest, and golden sunlight shining in through the window.

"Good morning," her husband rumbles.

And Sigrid decides right then that it is.

* * *

**finis**

**Note: **Thank you all so much for reading, leaving kudos and taking the time to comment. This has been quite the fic for me!

I have a sequel in the works (which I think will be shorter, but I thought this was going to be about 3K, so what do I know?), that I really want to finish by the end of the month because of Off-Screen Writing Reasons. In the mean time, watch this space for snippets from the years between "A Favourable Arrangement" and "The Very Spoilery Titled Sequel". ;)

Gravity_Not_Included, January 27, 2014


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